August 28, 2019

"In hypothetical matchups between President Trump and the top five Democratic presidential candidates, one key number is 40. It's the ceiling of support for Trump..."

"... no matter the candidate. It hovers close to his job approval rating, which has stayed in a tight range since being elected."

Said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Mary Snow, quoted in "All Top Dems Beat Trump As Voters' Economic Outlook Dims Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Dem Primary Stays Stable With Biden Holding The Lead" (Quinnipiac).

I've often wondered about the correspondence between "approval" and voting behavior. I myself tend to disapprove of all the politicians, but I do pick one to vote for in the end. In 2016, I was forced to vote for a presidential candidate I disapproved of, and I expect to get stuck doing the same thing in 2020. But, here, Snow is saying that the 2 numbers really do correspond when it comes to Trump.

By the way, we were all talking about the 3-way tie — Biden, Sanders, Warren — in the Monmouth poll that came out the other day, but look how there have been 6 — or at least 5 — polls since then without any confirmation of the loss of Biden's lead:

225 comments:

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Known Unknown said...

I always lie to pollsters when they call, so I find their results not too compelling.

Michael K said...

My guess at the moment6 is that Warren wins the nomination and, as a white woman and school marm personality, will have no black or even Hispanic, appeal. Then DNC will then panic and we will see a movement to draft Michelle or Oprah.

doctrev said...

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.

Althouse, you're a professor. Please have a bit more insight into these matters than your average brain-dead juiceboxer. "Trump's ceiling of support" is a meme, repeatedly incessantly during 2016 by idiots who kept declaring that no, he will never rise beyond this arbitrary number, he's doomed, etc. That Trump is dramatically -less- popular after proving himself as a steward of the economy and the American majority is nonsense on stilts, promoted in a vain attempt to get a decent primary going. No one believes it, and no Republican politician of merit is ready to quixotically light their career on fire.

rhhardin said...

Having the approval of women would be a disqualifier for having guys's approval.

Earnest Prole said...

Meh. Trump was elected with 38 percent approval in 2016.

Darrell said...

Trump support is wide and it's deep.
I can't tell you how many "OK" hand signs I saw today.

DarkHelmet said...

Was this before or after Bernie was sucker punched by a speed bag?

Expat(ish) said...

PARTY IDENTIFICATION
Republican 29%
Democrat 34
Independent 28
Other/DK/NA 9

I bet they could elect a yellow dog eating a ham sammich.

-XC

tim maguire said...

If the economy is still strong, Trump will win. If we are sliding into a recession, Trump will lose. That's how it works and everybody knows it. That's why the Democrats have recently started openly hoping for a recession while their cheerleaders in the media are pretending there already is one and it's Trump's fault.

gahrie said...

I can't wait for all of the articles in late 2020 explaining how all of the pollsters got things so wrong.

tim maguire said...

A lot of hullabaloo about the Monmouth poll that turns out to be an outlier.

Still, Warren is the real front runner and probably uncatchable. Sanders will drop out and all his supporters will go to her, giving her a 10 pt lead over Biden. As the others drop out, Biden and Warren will split their votes. Which means Biden will make up no ground.

Gospace said...

According to the polls, Hillary is POTUS, yet Trump is sleeping in the White House. And not renting out the Lincoln bedroom as some unnamed previous administration did....

Bay Area Guy said...

Trump v. Pocahontas in 2020!

Warren will probably pick a black male as VP (Dems identity politics requires it). So, I predict Andrew Gillum of Florida or Senator Booker.

But, yeah, I consider these polls to be "soft" data -- very, very, soft. Very large margins of error.

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wince said...

There's a flip-side argument here.

At some point, don't these polls mean that if there's a economic downturn it's because the "smart money" thinks a Democrat will win?

Aside from the headwinds of a global slow-down outside the US (and Trump's control), Trump can also argue Democrats are tanking the economy with their own favorability ratings.

Drago said...

Zogby has Trump at 51% approval.

John McLaughlin has Trump above 50% approval.

Trump approval is above obama at this point in obama's term.

None of this matters. November of 2020 is when it matters.

Kalli Davis said...

Reading about meaningless polls is worse than drinking bleach. When I see a poll of likely voters with a clear and reasonable methodology, I'm interested.

But they don't show up until 2-3 months before an election

Beasts of England said...

How long before they relaunch the ‘No path to 270’ canard?

Yancey Ward said...

Tim Maguire wrote:

"If the economy is still strong, Trump will win. If we are sliding into a recession, Trump will lose. That's how it works and everybody knows it."

Exactly right. Also, Trump won in 2016 with low approval ratings then, too. Also, Clinton was shown to be 5-12 points ahead by numerous polls, even late into October 2016, and yet Trump won.

Unknown said...

Doesn't the congressional approval rating hover somewhere in the teens regardless of who is in the Congress?

Is the economic outlook voters face really threatened?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

I've always been a pessimist when it comes to conservative's electoral fortunes, mainly because the Republican Party is such a gobsmackingly incompetent pack of knuckleheads. But, Jesus, I really think Trump is going to crush his opponent in 2020.

rehajm said...

Voters are grouchy about the pre-recession we’re in. Right.

AllenS said...

tim maguire said...
If the economy is still strong, Trump will win. If we are sliding into a recession, Trump will lose.

I say nonsense. Trump will be replaced with who/whom? A Democrat who says everything will be free? Says tax cuts will be repealed? Corporate tax rates will soar, which, everyone should know, will just trigger companies to cut back on hiring and raises. Will those Democrats policies stop a recession or encourage one?

cubanbob said...

These polls are push polls. All the Democrats are running on a Socialism Now platform. The only difference is between full strength ( Bernie)and various strengths, the rest ( but a turd in the milk tank is a turd in the milk tank no matter the size). Socialism. That appeals to grifters who don't think they will be the ones getting grifted. The middle class understand perfectly well that the wealth tax the Democrats are proposing isn't going to fall only on the very rich. Once instituted overtime it will hit them as well.

gilbar said...

serious question
a Lot of y'all are even older then i am (well, Some of you are a Little older than i am);
Can ANY of you remember a republican, that was Ahead at this point in the race?
I can't
I'm not saying, i can't remember a republican winning; or a republican being ahead in the polls
I mean, a year or so out, can any of you remember a republican being ahead in the polls?
Trump wasn't even on the radar four years ago; and SURE wasn't ahead in the Polls
W wasn't, not in 2003, not in 1999
seems to me, that Dukakis (and/or the generic Democrat) was ahead until late summer 1987
Mondale? wasn't even Mondale ahead in the polls? At least, wasn't Reagan behind in 1983?
Carter? I REMEMBER Carter being ahead until late Sept 1980
Nixon? was Nixon polling ahead in 1971? NOT 72, but 71?

Anybody? does Anyone remember a republican being ahead a year or so out?
thanx!

Kay said...

In 2016, I was forced to vote for a presidential candidate I disapproved of, and I expect to get stuck doing the same thing in 2020.

I’ve only ever done this once in my life and felt very cheated as a result. That’s probably why I usually never vote.

doctrev said...

Hitler's brand could only come into power during a recession. After three years of plenty, is the Derp State seriously dumb enough to try tanking the economy? Economic perfomance will only decide if Trump runs as Successful Dealmaker or Caesar-in-Waiting. I don't think anything short of actually trying to tank the economy would actually cause a recession, but Trump has some very simple ways to deal with that.

1) Massive deregulation that advantages small businesses over multinationals.
2) Progressively-graded corporate income taxes. Make the multinationals howl with despair.
3) Bleed Big Tech and Wall Street with fines for their conduct. It has the added advantage of blunting the populist appeal of Sanders or (snerk) Warren.

I don't actually care about the fate of converged multinationals anymore, and would bet tens of millions of Republicans feel the same way. But it's not important: if Donald Trump doesn't have mass indictments of federal officials and Democratic grandees, he deserves to lose the election.

YoungHegelian said...

Trump defeated HRC in 2016 with the odds stacked against him by pursuing a state by state strategy that locked up the electoral vote.

My question is: Have any of the Trump coalition voters in those states turned away from him in sufficient numbers to matter (buyer's remorse)? Has the Trump administration failed to deliver in ways that a Democrat could (e.g. one could argue that Trump has failed to deliver on restricting immigration, but the Democrats would be much worse)?

I'm just not seeing massive defections from the Trump voter coalition. Maybe it's there, and I'm too confirmation-biased, but I'm not seeing it.

Michael K said...

Warren will probably pick a black male as VP (Dems identity politics requires it). So, I predict Andrew Gillum of Florida or Senator Booker.

Why go with those low octane losers ? Al Sharpton for VP ! Go with the pure stuff. Those self hating Jews at the NY Times will love it.

Project 1619 brought to the Major Leagues! Reparations Rag played at the Convention.

Achilles said...

The masks are all off now.

Everyone knows what it means to elect Democrats.

They cannot run from promising to give illegals free healthcare. Or spying on political opponents. Or their support for political violence.

Voter fraud is their only hope now.

gilbar said...

Yancy said...
Clinton was shown to be 5-12 points ahead by numerous polls, even late into October 2016,


Oh now,Come ON! We ALL heard Chuck tell us, Over and Over and Over Again; about how accurate the polls were! He's told us time and time again about how, by mid November; the polls were "within the margin of error"

Nonapod said...

I find it revealing that so many lefty TV pundits, lefty journalists and commentators constantly quote all these polls as if they're gospel. If the polls were so trustworthy, then why bother trying to convince everybody? I mean... you've got it in the bag, right? Polls say that even a full on self admitted socialist easily beats Trump, no problem. So why do you act so worriedly?

gahrie said...

I'm just not seeing massive defections from the Trump voter coalition. Maybe it's there, and I'm too confirmation-biased, but I'm not seeing it.

The theory is that there is going to be much greater Democratic turnout this time.

Rory said...

"As the others drop out, Biden and Warren will split their votes. Which means Biden will make up no ground."

I don't think Biden will gain a new vote from now to the convention.

doctrev said...

gahrie said...
I'm just not seeing massive defections from the Trump voter coalition. Maybe it's there, and I'm too confirmation-biased, but I'm not seeing it.

The theory is that there is going to be much greater Democratic turnout this time.

8/28/19, 12:21 PM

The last time the Democrats ran their turnout, a great deal of it went to Trump. And that was before he negotiated a trade deal that the Democratic House is relentlessly blocking. If Trump can't accurately portray that as the Dems bowing to their multinational masters, again, he deserves to lose.

Beasts of England said...

’I'm just not seeing massive defections from the Trump voter coalition.’

I’ve yet to read of a single Trump defector in the comment sections across the six or eight blogs I track. I’ve seen quite a few comments from those who didn’t vote for him in 2016, but will in 2020.

Hagar said...

These are all "little people."
Maybe Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan can register as Democrats and run. They would get all the machine Democrats and enough "Never Trump" Republicans to win.

DarkHelmet said...

"I'm just not seeing massive defections from the Trump voter coalition. Maybe it's there, and I'm too confirmation-biased, but I'm not seeing it."

I doubt there are many 2016 Trump voters who will vote for the Dem in 2020. It's all about turnout, though. Hillary lost because she didn't turn out enough of Obama's marginal voters.

If those people are motivated to vote in 2020 that's how Trump loses.

In other words: 2012 electorate shows up: Trump loses. 2016 electorate shows up: Trump wins.

YoungHegelian said...

@gahrie,

The theory is that there is going to be much greater Democratic turnout this time.

Yeah, I've heard that. The major problem with that theory is that the folks who are all pissed off & rarin' to vote Trump out are all urban & suburban liberal whites, who always vote. They voted in 2008, 2012, 2016 & they'll vote in 2020.

The big number of "sometimes" voters are minorities. I'm sorry to have to tell the Democrats but the blacks and Latinos are just not all hopped up on Trump-hatred, as hard as the white lefties have tried to jazz them up. Life just hasn't become a living hell for them under Trump, as they were told over & over again it would be. Matter of fact, for blacks especially, things have gotten better, jobs-wise.

If someone has a pool that shows a major rise in Trump-hatred among minorities, please link to it. I haven't seen any.

doctrev said...

DarkHelmet, please. The 2012 electorate turned out to support the first black President. If they think they can match that with the incredible charisma of (mwhahaha) Elizabeth Warren, roll the dice. I'll be the one betting on Trump. Whatever his faults are, he's better than Multiple Choice Mitt Romney, so things aren't going to look as bad as 2012.

Nonapod said...

In other words: 2012 electorate shows up: Trump loses. 2016 electorate shows up: Trump wins.

In other words, the Dems have to basically convince a huge number of mostly black and hispanic people who didn't vote last time to turn out and vote for either a white lady who lied about being a native American or some old white guy.

n.n said...

Polls, press, and perception. The former would do well to stop manipulating the last, but they won't, they can't, so polsters and journolists go along to get along, and democracy suffers under a veil of imagined and constructed political myths.

Limited blogger said...

The MSM knew Trump had won at 8:00pm Eastern time

It was not 'declared' until 3:00am

I'll always go to them for meaningful insights, thanks

Anonymous said...

polls had Hillary winning fwiw

Gospace said...

In other words: 2012 electorate shows up: Trump loses. 2016 electorate shows up: Trump wins.

But what if it,s the 2020 electorate that shows up? What then?

Kevin said...

The return of overism.

Fernandinande said...

Biden is a white man's problem. White folks are the reason we have Biden in any institutions. There has always been people like Biden in America.

In my administration "Biden would not be tolerated."

Yancey Ward said...

I am also coming to the conclusion that Warren is the real front-runner for the Dem nomination. She is the only one in the top tier of 6 candidates who is running what looks like a real functioning and professional campaign. Sanders matches her in energy, but his upside is extremely limited- he will never top 20%.

The one fly in the ointment for Warren, though, is this- Sanders won't withdraw at any point- he will run right to the last primary since he isn't dependent on big donors in any fashion. His supporters would naturally fall to Warren preferenetially, but him staying in the race and picking up that 10-20 regularly does hurt Warren more than it hurts Biden or Harris.

Earnest Prole said...

In other words, the Dems have to basically convince a huge number of mostly black and hispanic people who didn't vote last time to turn out and vote for either a white lady who lied about being a native American or some old white guy.

Well-stated, except the old white guy will do better than Hillary against Trump in white working-class Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where Trump had razor-thin margins last time.

Kevin said...

Just because you pick politician A over politician B in a forced choice, doesn’t mean you’re going to vote for A on Election Day.

Let’s not forget, half the country routinely doesn’t vote.

Bay Area Guy said...

I say: Warren will probably pick a black male as VP (Dems identity politics requires it). So, I predict Andrew Gillum of Florida or Senator Booker.

Doc K says: Why go with those low octane losers ? Al Sharpton for VP ! Go with the pure stuff. Those self hating Jews at the NY Times will love it.

Project 1619 brought to the Major Leagues! Reparations Rag played at the Convention.


Hey, I'm wrong about many things in this world, but if I'm wrong here, and Pocahontas picks Sharpton as her running mate, Hell, it will be a glorious wrong!

Warren -Sharpton in 2020 - From Harvard to Harlem!

Bruce Hayden said...

“Trump v. Pocahontas in 2020!

Warren will probably pick a black male as VP (Dems identity politics requires it). So, I predict Andrew Gillum of Florida or Senator Booker.”

I don’t think that she has a choice. She would need the Black vote to win, and on her own, isn’t likely to get nearly enough of it. Being a white bread diversity hire at Harvard Law Schoo probably won’t help her with them. And, as has been pointed out by others here, her swarmy schoolmarm personality is very off putting to many, and likely esp in Black communities. For her to have a decent chance, this has to be neutralized, which means a Black descendant of slaves male running mate.

I don’t think though that she would automatically win if the economy tanks, because her economic proposals are brain dad, and would, almost assuredly, push us far faster into a recession, than we would see if Trump were to remain in office. Repealing the Trump tax cuts alone, as the economy weakens, would be disastrous. There is a time when the economy can maybe tolerate large tax increases. But the time that it least can is as the economy weakens as we start to tip over, and then start into a cyclical downturn. And that is precisely what she is advocating. And, no doubt, her other detailed policy proposals are almost equally brain dead and counterproductive. The problem for her, here, is that she has a law degree, and no real business or economic experience. Trump is just the opposite. Most Republicans couldn’t sell this distinction. I don’t see Trump having a problem there though.

We shall see.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Nobody knows is these polls reflect actual voter sentiment.

heyboom said...

If we are sliding into a recession, Trump will lose.

The recession would be the least of our worries if Trump loses. If the Democrats get control back, that would be the end of our Republic as we know it. Voters surely are smarter than to base their vote on that single parameter, right?

Kevin said...

Wake me if the press ever starts reporting the Democrat can’t win.

The candidate with the D is never out of it in media reports.

Yancey Ward said...

"The MSM knew Trump had won at 8:00pm Eastern time. It was not 'declared' until 3:00am"

Other than FoxNews, none of the main 6 networks had called any of the Blue Wall states when Trump gave his victory speech and after Clinton had conceded.

Kevin said...

For the media to report any D can’t beat Trump would be to end their candidacy.

Electability is required to keep the money flowing.

Nonapod said...

Even if Warren chooses a black veep (which I agree, she would have to) I'm still doubtful she could garner Obama 2012 black turnouts. Who knows though?

gilbar said...

Monmouth University renounces its own poll showing Biden plunging, calls it an ‘outlier

pretty early for polls to be admitting that they are full of it; normally doesn't happen until mid november

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Well-stated, except the old white guy will do better than Hillary against Trump in white working-class Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where Trump had razor-thin margins last time.

8/28/19, 12:39 PM

Not so sure about that. The blue collar guys I know are not very fond of socialists. Bernie's main appeal is to white millennials who don't know very much about the 20th century track record of Communism.

FrankiM said...

Warren polls extremely well in the majority of the states that are going to matter. Trump polls very poorly in these states.

Vet66 said...

Trump and Truman have/had a lot in common. Most noteworthy- they agree that whether working in D.C. or Hollywood it's like "being a piano player in a whore house." Not much difference between THE APPRENTICE and POTUS. I'd vote for the scoundrel any time. Liberals have no scoundrels in their stable. They do have the equivalent of the proverbial public defender and a street light.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

It's so cute when Inga makes presidential election predictions. She was so on the mark in 2016!

Fernandinande said...

Fredo Cuomo supports Trump:

‘If This President Had His Way, People Like Me Wouldn’t Be Here’

FrankiM said...

Trump’s Approval Rating Drops in Swing States

Nonapod said...

Not so sure about that. The blue collar guys I know are not very fond of socialists. Bernie's main appeal is to white millennials who don't know very much about the 20th century track record of Communism.

I think Earnest Prole was thinking more of Biden. But, yeah. I assume Biden would be more appealing to blue collar PA voters than Bernie at any rate. Whether he beats Trump with those voters is another matter.

John said...

You can consider me jaded but it seems to me, the pollsters routinely get the final result wrong by distances that far exceed the margin of error they cite in their polls. When these polls become the basis for political analysts to project the outcomes of the election it is, to my mind, somewhat akin to a self-licking icecream cone.

President Trump is such an outlier in conventional politics I seriously doubt the polls accurately capture much more than what the people who commission the polls want as a final result.

stevew said...

I'll treat these things seriously after one is proven to accurately predict an outcome.

Other than my buddy Rick G. (in Feb 2016) no one I know or read predicted Trump would defeat Clinton in November 2016. Rick G. is currently predicting a comfortable re-election for PDT.

gilbar said...

Kevin said...
Let’s not forget, half the country routinely doesn’t vote.

In the Immortal Words of S.E. Hinton; That was Then, This is Now

Thanx to modern vote harvesting techniques; voter turnout will USUALLY exceed %130
Vote Early! Vote Often!

Yancey Ward said...

Looks like the DNC managed to keep Gabbard off the stage for the next round of debates. Harris still has some true believers embedded there.

rhhardin said...

The key to getting a Republican in is getting women to doubt women's sanity.

An instant of political clarity for them. It can't last long.

ConradBibby said...

Trump beat Hillary on the issues. If 2020 is decided on the issues, it's hard to see how the Dem nominee can possibly win. On what major issue would s/he have the clear upper hand? Their program seems practically designed to alienate vast segments of the voting population. They're deluding themselves if they think an electoral majority can be won over in support of a program of socialism, open borders, taking away private health insurance, and the green new deal. They're not going to be able to convince voters of the wisdom of those policies in the remaining 14 months before election day. They don't understand that, regardless of their true beliefs and ambitions, they have to at least FEIGN moderation in order to win. Carter, Clinton, and Obama all understood this.

Bay Area Guy said...

Looks like the DNC managed to keep Gabbard off the stage for the next round of debates. Harris still has some true believers embedded there.

Bummer. I guess they didn't want Two-Percent Tulsi to take out another top-tier candidate. Tulsi's wrong on most stuff, but the gal has some moxy.

Charlie Potatoe said...

As usual, the Poll over samples Democrats.

According to its' numbers 46% of those sampled are Democrats or leaning Democrat.

A repeat of 2016, when most of the Polls missed the Trump rise by oversampling the Demos and leaning Demos.

There is no shame or learning in the Swamp, where failing up is the Rule of the Day.

Earnest Prole said...

Tulsi's wrong on most stuff, but the gal has some moxy.

The gal has moxy to burn.

Yancey Ward said...

Gabbard is like the torpedo in The Hunt For Red October- dangerous and likely to hit anyone she chooses to- in this case, it likely would have been Biden or Warren. Still, though, Harris is now more free to train her fire upwards the way she did in the debates of round 1.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Image of all democrats raising their hands when asked about giving illegal entrants FREE HEALTHCARE.

That should destroy all of them.

Just asking said...

But, here, Snow is saying that the 2 numbers really do correspond when it comes to Trump.

It's certainly been that way in all his other re-election races.

Francisco D said...

So, I predict Andrew Gillum of Florida or Senator Booker.

Yes. That is the winning ticket:

Fauxcohantas and Spartacus.

Temujin said...

Warren/Gillum- as Michael K. predicted, is a very real possibility.

But...the polls are nothing if not meaningless as anything other than a tool to tamper down the voters on one side or the other. After the last 10 years of fantastically blown predictions, not just in the US, but worldwide, on every conceivable election, what could possibly make them correct this time around?

We will once again be presented with months of these pollsters on TV shows, posing as experts on the subject. Bobbing their heads as their lips move. Full of assurance that they have done the background and the homework and they got the pulse of America. At least...Manhattan. Or Charlottesville. Or....maybe they can go to Macomb County, MI and find some Dems who voted for Trump but who now say they want Socialism Now!

In any case, we don't need no stinkin' poll numbers. Just count the votes. Oh...and we are still using the Electoral College. So if you're harvesting votes in Calfornia, you're going to need to somehow send a few bushel loads over to the midwestern states.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

For some reason I'm getting poll calls. I lie like a rug.

Professional lady said...

I think a lot of people voted for Obama because they wanted to be part of the historic election of our first Black president and the inevitable racial healing that they felt was sure to follow. Instead, we wound up with a pretty awful president (IMHO), a far left Democratic party focused on identity politics, and incessant accusations of racism and white supremacy aimed at just about everyone. Maybe the racial feel-good stuff that helped Obama get elected is over. Maybe a Black VP nominee won't be enough. Don't know, just musing.

Jim at said...

Until the nominee is named - and we see polling in specific states - none of this matters in the least.

But, whatever.

cubanbob said...

What are the Democrats proposing? To eliminate the shortage of domestic poor people by importing more of them and to eliminate the shortage of domestic criminals by importing more of them. Then for social justice let's raise taxes on anyone who is moderately successful to give free-stuff to everyone else. Hey, it could work.

madAsHell said...

I'm looking at the Democrat candidates, and all I see is evidence of voter fraud.

WisRich said...

stevew said...
I'll treat these things seriously after one is proven to accurately predict an outcome.
----------

Don't hold your breath. Most of the polling outfits, which all had Hillary winning, still think their polling was right.

Earnest Prole said...

I think Earnest Prole was thinking more of Biden. But, yeah. I assume Biden would be more appealing to blue collar PA voters than Bernie at any rate. Whether he beats Trump with those voters is another matter.

Thanks for saving me the trouble of a response. Yes, I’m going way out on a limb to say a man born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, who lived for many years in Wilmington, Delaware, will have greater appeal to white working-class voters than the shrill fake New Yorker Hillary Clinton. You read it here first.

Jim at said...

Warren polls extremely well in the majority of the states that are going to matter. Trump polls very poorly in these states.

You mean those blue-collar states he already won once?

Yeah. You go with that. Run a candidate who's just like Hillary Clinton, but without the charm.

rehajm said...

Maybe a Black VP nominee won't be enough. Don't know, just musing

On numerous occasions I've mused about barber shop black guys. Maybe they voted before Obama or maybe Obama was the first time they felt included. Sit and listen and it's hard not to come away with the conclusion they're never voting for a sour old white woman, or a woman at all.

It was funny to hear LeBron try to pump up Hillary on that HBO show he was on. You could tell the other guys weren't buying it...

I think Democrats have caught on, hence all the race pandering and trying to smear Trump as racist.

bagoh20 said...

I was very skeptical of Trump when I voted for him in 2016. I was nearly a never-Trumper.
He has completely blown my skepticism away, and continues to impress me daily.
How many Trump voters find him less qualified today than in 2016?
How many fence sitters do?
The only way to explain Trump performing worse this time is that Hillary was so bad that her awfulness is mostly what won it for him. Although there is certainly something to that, the current Dems are worse. They take Hillary's awfulness, and add a whopping dose of crazy and dangerous, with a healthy side of un-Americanism.

If it starts looking bad for Trump, it might be worth the penalty to cash out your 401K.

Hagar said...

When it comes time to vote - 14 months from now - who to vote against may be as important as who to vote for, and if you cannot bring yourself to vote for the opposing party's candidate, you can always use the two hours off to clean the garage.

Michael K said...

him staying in the race and picking up that 10-20 regularly does hurt Warren more than it hurts Biden or Harris.

We know Sanders can be bought. What's another house or two when the big bonanza is at stake ?

rehajm said...

As usual, the Poll over samples Democrats.

They count Obama voters as Democrat voters. Not same.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Not so sure about that. The blue collar guys I know are not very fond of socialists. Bernie's main appeal is to white millennials who don't know very much about the 20th century track record of Communism.”

“I think Earnest Prole was thinking more of Biden. But, yeah. I assume Biden would be more appealing to blue collar PA voters than Bernie at any rate. Whether he beats Trump with those voters is another matter”

For a lot of people, that is the allure of Biden. No matter how hokey he sounds to much of the country, he speaks to Rust Belt Blue collar voters much better than most of the Dem candidates. That was his base. Would he do better with them than Crooked Hillary did? Very likely, even taking into account his incipient dementia. She looked down on them as losers, and they knew it. She didn’t even campaign seriously in the Blue Wall states that she lost. Trump knew that even just showing up sometimes wins some contests that you would otherwise have lost. He went to those states, and asked for their votes for the sale. She didn’t bother. And lost. Don’t expect the Dems to make that mistake again.

But I don’t think that it is going to be as easy for the Dems this time around. Last time, Trump was an unknown. This time he has a track record that this demographic, in particular, likes. His opponents don’t. Sure, he hasn’t destroyed the economy in order to virtue signal his CAGW credentials. But that is only really important to college educated mostly female voters, who probably won’t vote for him regardless. Just too uncouth. This demographic is much more impressed with the fact that if our states were treated as countries, we would have 7 of the 10 places where oil production is growing the fastest in the world, led by Texas.

Bilwick said...

I always thought the key number was yet to be determined. That would be the number of free stuff promised by the Democrats.

h said...

The other number to watch is "15". If the results of a primary are Biden 16, Warren 14, Bernie 14, Biden gets all the delegates. If the results are Biden 17, Warren 15, Bernie 15, each of the three gets (approximately) one-third (Biden a few more) of the delegates. This second possibility makes a deadlock convention on the first ballot more likely.

n.n said...

Most of the polling outfits, which all had Hillary winning, still think their polling was right.

Left, and wrong. They haven't changed. They hope people will change, thus the polls. However, the immediate future polls right. Technically, center... in an American frame of reference.

Unknown said...

Democrats are a disease.

traditionalguy said...

The Polls produce any result they are paid to produce. All the polls have to do is over sample the Dems by 3 to 1 instead of 2 to 1. The sham authority that Colleges do fair polls is ridiculous. How is Global Warming according to colleges? Public polls are all rigged all of the time. That's why the campaigns do internal polling. If they pay Kellyannpolls ,they get the truth. And then they know to go to Wisconsin and Michigan in the last days.

rehajm said...

They're deluding themselves if they think an electoral majority can be won over in support of a program of socialism, open borders, taking away private health insurance, and the green new deal.

The strategy is to add enough of the never voters Obama pulled off the sidelines, plus enough new illegal voters to the any Democrat and never Trump voters. They're not going to go for reasonable voters or a squishy middle this time.

It just might work...

bagoh20 said...

I'm going to vote one time for each of my self-identified genders. Yep, I can re-identify that fast. If I don't do that, the genders who don't get to vote are clearly being disenfranchised based on gender, and that is totally wrong on every level. There is almost nothing my various genders agree on, but there is one thing: Trump is not an insane socialist poser.

bagoh20 said...

All I know is there are too many old straight white people in this thing.

Amexpat said...

I agree with Bruce Hayden's analysis above. I'd handicap Trump's election chances at 60/40. Primarily because I think Warren now has the best chance of winning the nomination and I don't think she will do well with voters without a college education.

Kathryn51 said...

Any poll of "registered" voters is worthless, whenever taken.

Like others here, I don't think Lizzie will appeal to poor/middle class minority voters - free college tuition for (mostly) white kids? free medical for illegals? I don't think so.

Looking at photos and videos of Lizzie's recent rally in Seattle, there were an awful lot of white faces and white hands being raised.

If the economy tanks in the next 6 months, I think Biden wins the Dem primaries.

Einfahrt said...

The MSM business model requires polls to instill hope, or despair, in targeted audiences. Usually hope for Dems, despair for Repubs. This drives increased clicks, reader/viewership, more advertising dollars, and massive flows of campaign dollars. I'm not sure MSM could exist as it is currently formed without the two- and four-year blast of interest and money that comes from political campaigns.

The polls will say what they want them to say until close to the election, then they will tighten up, or approach reality as then understood, otherwise the game is up and everyone would know that the polls are just instruments of manipulation.

My two cents.

bagoh20 said...

I loved the Biden gaff in the debate when he called Spartacus "president" and then fixed it by calling him "future president". He is so gonna kick Trump's ass.

Bay Area Guy said...

A deadlocked DNC convention would be awesome: Biden, Bernie and Lizzie fighting it out, while Antifa lurks outside the hall.

Trump will have $500 Mill in the bank, while the eventual Dem winner will be bloodied and broke.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I love what Trump is doing policy wise and enjoy some of his pugnaciousness especially towards the media and Swamp Critters. So he has my vote. I hate every f-ing Dem candidate including Retard Biden who has been sucking at the public teat all his damn life.

But Trump's act and kneejerk twitter antics will cost him moderates, younger voters and independents IMHO and he won't be re-elected unless he calms that shit down.

No one wants to hear about the President, no matter who it is, nonstop 247.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

I don't think she will do well with voters without a college education.

8/28/19, 1:54 PM

She reminds me of the crabby, sour-faced Boston nun who taught my 2nd grade class and constantly warned us that we were a sorry lot who needed to shape up.

I keep expecting Warren to break out the ruler and rap someone on the knuckles.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Voters are concerned about Russia.

oops - I mean, the dimming economy.

*insert democratic propaganda media wish-pimp*

PM said...

Guessing Biden will be considered the 'sane' choice. Bernie and Liz are nags. (The thought of Warren being the nominee and having a woman lose twice in a row. Oy, the national blowback.)

With Biden, Mr Obama will finally hit the trail to gin the vote. He's got to. That was his VP for 8 long years.

Seeing Red said...

Too far out

Earnest Prole said...

No one wants to hear about the President, no matter who it is, nonstop 247.

Politics occupies a tiny portion of a normal person's attention.

Roy Lofquist said...

There is only one poll that got it right in 2016 - USC/Dornsife.

https://cesrusc.org/election/

That's the only one I'm going to look at in 2020. Take a look and bookmark.

bagoh20 said...

"No one wants to hear about the President, no matter who it is, nonstop 247."

The professionals seem to disagree since everybody who makes a living talking politics talks about little else. Every radio, paper, TV, and internet outlet is obsessed with him. They will rue the day they wished for him gone. Can you imagine trying to do that with Biden? We might forget who the President is under Biden.

bagoh20 said...

Obama will tell us how Biden is clean, articulate, and likable enough.

Gospace said...

Blogger ConradBibby said...
Trump beat Hillary on the issues.


Have to disagree. Trump beat Hillary because he wasn't Hillary. It's really that simple. Pundits and pollsters had no way of measuring the total and complete disdain a large part of the electorate had for Hillary. It was the anti-Hillary voters that showed up at the polls and elected Trump. Next time around, I'll have reason to vote for Trump.

After his election is when I started finding out that everything he's doing is stuff he had already written about or said in interviews long long before he announced his run. The only thing I knew he had said pre-candidacy was that he would never run unless he was going to win. Which was a little (or a lot) presumptuous.

The results show he was planning this a long time. I don't think he foresaw the attempted coup. Admiral Rogers apparently informed Trump of nefarious activities. Trump has had to deal with an attempted coup as well as trying to set and accomplish his agenda. With court rulings against justified by "Orange Man Bad" and nothing more. Letybe real- what constitutional or other legal justification exists that prohibits President B from cancelling President A's executive order? Only the Orange Man Bad Doctrine. Those of us paying attention know this. And the Media are no longer gatekeepers of information.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Trump will have $500 Mill in the bank, while the eventual Dem winner will be bloodied and broke.”

This is going to be interesting. Republicans at the national level almost always can legally out-raise Democrats in Presidential contests. This is because the Dems tend to be the party of the poor and the very rich. The poor don’t have any money to contribute to political candidates, and the rich are supposedly limited by campaign finance laws. The result is that their cheating is fairly obvious in every recent Presidential campaign they won, and even some, like Crooked Hillary’s, that they lost. We can all probably remember all the Chinese money that flowed into the Clinton/Gore campaign, and the Obama/Biden campaign turning off credit card verification, in order to garner foreign campaign contributions. Crooked Hillary’s campaign had a novel twist. A campaign front organization collected bundled contributions from mega donors. They were then dividied up and sent to up to 43 state committees, which in turn sent them back to the DNC, which then gave them to Crooked Hillary’s campaign. All almost legal, allowing mega donors to give Clinton up to 43x the legal contribution limit - if all those transactions had been independent. They weren’t. It was all accomplished by one person moving money between accounts at the same bank. Turns out that they were all alter egos for the Clinton campaign. She got away with it because AG Lynch owed the Clintons for her political start, and the Senate Dems have intentionally kept the FEC under strength so that it doesn’t have a quorum to investigate.

What is going to be interesting this time is how the Dems intend to cheat this time around, and how the Trump/Barr DoJ responds. Theoretically, the Dems should have a harder time blatantly cheating this time around, running against a sitting President, since thecDoJ reports to him. We shall see.

Dangerous Dreamer said...

How many times did we hear about Trump's ceiling and how he couldn't win. I prefer to wait for the landslide victory he will have when he trounces Warren next year. It will be delicious.

Nonapod said...

My suspicion is that there's probably a group of voters who dislike Trump, dislike his ceaseless Tweeting, dislike his constant provacative behavior, and find his personality overbearing, dislike that Trump is all they hear about all the time... but despite all that they will end up voting for him anyway when offered a choice between him or Warren/Biden/Sanders. Just a hunch.

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wince said...

Is it really advantageous for Democrats to believe that any one of the top three (Biden, Warren or Sanders) has this one in the bag?

Amadeus 48 said...

No one can afford to go to sleep here with numbers like this. I think the numbers are wrong and Trump will win easily, but if we are in recession it will be a lot harder. Trump is building a war chest and has a strong back room going, but everyone should take these numbers seriously and make the case for continued high employment and economic dynamism under Trump 2020. This election is not going to win itself.

WisRich said...

Roy Lofquist said...
There is only one poll that got it right in 2016 - USC/Dornsife.

https://cesrusc.org/election/

That's the only one I'm going to look at in 2020. Take a look and bookmark.
-----------

Yep, the LA tracking poll. Remember watching it before the election. All the pundits considered it an outlier. Conservatives were hoping it wasn't.

James K said...

People who don't like Trump that much may say now that they prefer some relatively unknown alternative. But once the actual real-life alternative takes shape in the form of a Lizzy Warren or a Joe Biden, and they see how awful the alternative is, they will reconsider, just as they did in 2016.

Beasts of England said...

’The thought of Warren being the nominee and having a woman lose twice in a row.’

That’s an excellent point. There are probably a few party elders who wouldn’t mind sacrificing Biden to avoid that outcome.

Although seeing the Pussy Hat patrol completely implode would be tasty...

Nonapod said...

Is it really advantageous for Democrats to believe the one of the top three (Biden, Warren or Sanders) has this one in the bag?

Logically, no, it's not. But the pollsters are just doing what they've always done, which is to attempt to use polls to steer public opinion rather than to simply report on it. Of course, I don't know if the general public still has a great deal of faith in the accuracy of polls. Maybe they still do. Obviously the media still reports them and treats them as if they were essentially The Truth.

Rabel said...

"In 2016, I was forced to vote for a presidential candidate I disapproved of, and I expect to get stuck doing the same thing in 2020."

Althouse has been a tease ever since she put on that miniskirt in high school.

Bay Area Guy said...

Based on Occam's Razor, here's the most straightforward political calculation:

The Electoral College almost guarantees a close election in 2020.

Looking at a 2016 map, there's only 5 or 6 states that even have the capability of flipping from red to blue or blue to red.

Based on the 2016 map, Trump has roughly 260 EV already locked up. This means he needs 10 more EV to win from Wis, Mich, Penn or VA or (NH + Nevada).

Doug said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Doug said...

The theory is that there is going to be much greater Democratic turnout this time

Wait ... more turnout than when all the soap opera white womyn were going to elect THE FIRST WOMYN PRESIDENT?

I doubt it.

Rabel said...

"There is only one poll that got it right in 2016 - USC/Dornsife."

It was a popular vote poll. It had Trump winning the popular vote by 3 percentage points.

It was wrong.

M Jordan said...

The results of polls can never be disputed, at least until election day. The further out from that one Moment of Truth, the polls merely show the biases of the polling firms. For the most part, modern polling is corrupt, even (especially?) the university polls.

Trump will NOT lose by double digits and anyone with an honest brain knows that. In fact, it is very unlikely he will lose period. But for now, corrupt pollsters can push a narrative in hopes of creating a reality.

Doug said...

If Fauxcahontas is the nominee, I lay 3:1 odds that Corey Booker gets the VP nod. The (Reverse) October Surprise is ... he comes out of the closet.

Bob Boyd said...

Do they still poll by calling landlines?
Who still has a land line? The same people who still watch network news probably.

Skeptical Voter said...

Yup Fauxcahontas and Spartacus! Yeah, that's a winning ticket--in the polls that is. Only poll that counts comes early in November 2020, and I'm betting that Fauxcahontas goes home to her tipi in Cambridge, and Spartacus returns to Rome and the Colosseum.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The theory is that there is going to be much greater Democratic turnout this time”

I think that the word “turnout” may not be completely accurate. Rather I would use the passive voice and suggest that they may receive more votes. “Turnout” implies that more discrete live legal voters vote this time. That may not be necessarily true. An alternative to higher vote counts may be as simple as increasingly brazen ballot fraud and cheating.

M Jordan said...

@Bay Area Guy "Based on the 2016 map, Trump has roughly 260 EV already locked up. This means he needs 10 more EV to win from Wis, Mich, Penn or VA or (NH + Nevada)."

Likely true. I submit he'll win all of those except VA and he'll pick up Minnesota as well.

JAORE said...

I do think it will be Trump v Dances-With-Stick-Up-Ass.

But Lord, that screeching, scolding Maiden Aunt act is NOT endearing.

Bob Boyd said...

I wouldn't write Biden off just yet. I think Warren scares a lot of wealthy Dems.
And rightfully so. She's a savage.

Drago said...

Gospace: "Have to disagree. Trump beat Hillary because he wasn't Hillary. It's really that simple."

No, its not that simple. At all. Many conflating variables were at work.

In the aggregate, had the GOP nominated any of the other candidates Hillary would have won.

There is no way any of the other GOP candidates flip the obama counties from 2008/2012 and there is absolutely no way any of the other GOP candidates would have seen such a surge of long-time non-voters who were motivated for Trump to come out and vote for the first time in years.

Had the GOP nominated Jeb, Hillary would have won in an electoral college landslide.

MikeR said...

I have been saying this for a while. There are no swing voters left. Some support Trump and some think he's the Devil incarnate. The second group will vote for anyone else.
I am afraid that the second group is comfortably larger.

Bay Area Guy said...

Here's a brief story on Liz Warren's hubby -- another Harvard Law Professor. Yikes.

Wedding shot of Liz 30 years ago - Yowza!

Drago said...

Bob Boyd: "I wouldn't write Biden off just yet. I think Warren scares a lot of wealthy Dems.
And rightfully so. She's a savage."

True, but the combined commie/populist wing of the dems is easily 45 to 50% of the dem vote so Li'l Tomahawk will have to kick Commie-boy out of the race if she is going to solidify her position.

The current vote total ratio's for LLR Chuck approved Biden, Warren, Bernie and Harris, if carried into the convention, would still probably lead to a Warren victory on a 2nd or 3rd ballot.

Rabel said...

"She's a savage."

A noble savage. If she wins, the Norwegians will give her a prize and she'll be a Nobel savage.

Calypso Facto said...

"There are no swing voters left."

Maybe. There was a lot of talk after 2016 of how Libertarian Party Gary Johnson had been a "spoiler" for Hillary. "The 2016 election results made analysts focus on four states in which Trump's lead over Clinton was less than Johnson's total number of votes: Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan; for instance, analysts also expressed if about half of Johnson's supporters would have voted for Clinton over Trump, the electoral map would have been decidedly different. There were close races in Michigan, where Trump won by fewer than 14,000 votes, Johnson got more than 172,000 votes; and in Wisconsin, where Johnson won more than 105,000 votes, Trump won by less than 33,000 votes."

Hard to say which way those people break, though my guess is that, so long as the economy is still chugging, they decide Trump hasn't been as bad all the Chicken Littles predicted and they jump on the bandwagon. I don't think the Libertarians have the stars aligned to garner(!) the votes they did in 2016, so those votes will land somewhere, and it's hard to see them going to anyone from the authoritarian slate the Dems are lining up.

Michael K said...

Theoretically, the Dems should have a harder time blatantly cheating this time around, running against a sitting President, since thecDoJ reports to him. We shall see.

2018 was the trial run of ballot harvesting. It was used in CA to take down all the GOP Congress members in OC and in AZ to take down McSally in the Senate race. Granted McSally ran a weak race but she was ahead after election day, just like all the GOP Congress people. in OC The "late votes" rolled in for two weeks.

JackWayne said...

I’m going with a Sanders nomination and Harris as VP.

buwaya said...

We need Mick.
The man with a track record.

Amadeus 48 said...

The Dem field is weak. The Dem messaging machine is strong because of their lock on the MSM. On the other hand, there is no Republican since Ronald Reagan that is better at getting his message out than Donald Trump.

In the last election, the Dem message was make history by electing the first female president to succeed the first black president. The GOP message was keep Crooked Hillary away from power and out of the White House. The FBI follies helped Trump on many levels.

The Democratic message for 2020 so far seems to be vote for us and get stuff. The Trump message is that he is fighting for you so that you can earn your dreams. The Trump message has been a traditional winner. If black employment stays high, Trump will do well among African Americans and particularly AA men. He is poised to do well among hispanics. He needs to get those folks involved.

He will not do well among suburban women, largely on style points. He needs to emphasize the bread and butter issues to minimize his problems. He will never do well among single women who want a plan B for economic security.

When we get into the trenches, we see if robbing selected Peter to pay collective Paul is a winner. In prosperous economy, it hasn’t been in past elections.

The next election is more important than the last one because of the changes of the parties’ messages: Hillary is over, think of all the free stuff from the Dems, and we are making America great again: don’t mess it up from the GOP.

Here’s a toast to freedom and prosperity.

Bay Area Guy said...

According to the above article on Elizabeth Warren and her Harvard Law Prof husband, Bruce Mann:

In 2017, he and Warren earned a combined $913,442, according to the release of their jointly filed tax returns, during Warren’s re-election campaign.

913K in one year! Yowza! Thatsa lotta shekels.

Warren certainly must have the pulse of all those Southie construction guys in Boston also making 913K a year.....

Tomcc said...

I do expect a high turnout of registered Democrats in 2020; I'm not convinced that those votes necessarily go to the Democratic presidential candidate, unless there's a strong shift to the center. (And assuming such a shift isn't seen as convenient rhetoric.)
I voted for neither Mr. Trump nor Mrs. Clinton due to my finding both of them abhorrent. Unless something radical happens, I'll vote for Mr. Trump in 2020 simply because he's the one not encouraging a middle class diaspora for our nation.

Bob Boyd said...

"There are no swing voters left."

I'm not so sure. Democrats have kids and grand kids too.

Amadeus 48 said...

Warren has been a weak candidate in Massachusetts, running behind other Dems. I think she’s a lousy campaigner.

I think she’ll be the nominee. Biden is old, stupid, and used up. Bernie was always a crank candidate. Harris has shown her colors, and it ain’t pretty. The fact that Biden polls well shows how scared the rank and file are of Warren. The rest of the Dem field are nobodies.

MD Greene said...

What if Pence steps back and Trump runs with Nikki Haley?

rehajm said...

I’m going with a Sanders nomination and Harris as VP

Sanders isn’t even a Democrat.

Amadeus 48 said...

Also, Trump is a known factor now. He weathered a very tough first two and a half years. He is a quick learner. He abides by established precedents and upholds the Constitution. He has been hampered by a disloyal civil service, but has worked hrough problems. He hasn’t taken us into a war, and has conspicuously tried to keep us out of certain foreign involvements. He has appointed good judges and taken advantage of the openings that Harry Reid gave him.

Trump is a much easier vote in 2020 for a lot of people than he was in 2016.

rehajm said...

There are swing voters left but they aren’t in the middle.

rehajm said...

I can confirm there are Very wealthy Dems on Massachusetts backing Warren.

Rabel said...

Polling Analyst Mary Snow moved to Quinnipiac University Polling from CNN a couple of years ago.

Nothing she says should be taken at face value.

Tomcc said...

rehajm:
"I can confirm there are Very wealthy Dems on Massachusetts backing Warren."
I'm curious about this. Would you characterize these people as business owner wealthy or trust fund wealthy- if you know?
I'd find it surprising if she has strong backing from business interests.

eric said...

Blogger gahrie said...
I can't wait for all of the articles in late 2020 explaining how all of the pollsters got things so wrong.

8/28/19, 11:47 AM


You'll never see these articles. Only the knuckle dragging rubes write these articles. The real media, the mainstream media, writes articles that say, "Those polls don't count. They're too far away from the actual event. Everyone knows those polls don't count."

What they fail to mention is, if they don't count, why did we pay so much attention to them?

rehajm said...

Would you characterize these people as business owner wealthy or trust fund wealthy- if you know?

I don’t know about ‘leaky bucket’ trustafarians. These people are FANG and hedge fund. It surprised me too. Though I was surprised when DWS wandered through the Bain office collecting checks in the morning and savaged Bain on TV in the afternoon.

eric said...

In July of 2015:

PPP: Clinton +13
USA Today: Clinton +17
CNN: Clinton +16
McClatchy: Clinton +16
Quinnipiac: Clinton +12

In August the polls only had Clinton at +2 to +5.

September Fox actually had Trump at +5 but no one else had Trump winning.

Give me a break with the polls.

eric said...

Here's a fun article from June of 2015.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/jeb-bush-surges-lead-gop-pack-new-2016-poll

Donald Trump is at 1% in this poll.

Reminds me of a lot of the Democrats right now, being laughed at because they too are at 1%.

Lydia said...

Biden has a new ad on healthcare in which he strikes a moderate course, compared with the other Democrats running.

Tomcc said...

rehajm: thanks for that. Very odd; her election would seem to augur against the self interests of the hedge fund/banking set. Not seeing the end game. Maybe for each dollar they contribute to her, $2 goes to the opposition...

Laslo Spatula said...

Presidential politics have become the equivalent of 207 consecutive weeks of NFL preseason games followed by a Super Bowl decided by a field goal.

207 consecutive weeks of writers and pundits and talking heads going on about the stars of these preseason games, games that don't count in the stat books, with scores that mean nothing.

Concurrent with those 207 weeks is the bitching about the officiating in the last Super Bowl.

What's worse: the alternative is fucking soccer.

I am Laslo.

MacMacConnell said...

Republicans should support 100% Medicare for all and outlaw private health insurance. Watch the unions turn on Medicare for all.

Dave Begley said...

Can anyone imagine Biden, Bernie or Liz as President? The worst would be the State of the Union address. Or some type of war or terrorist attack.

It is essential that the President inspire confidence in the American people. Those three are not presidential and one is senile.

Dave Begley said...

Biden is really creepy to see up close. I've seen both Trump and Biden up close. Yes, Donald has the odd skin color and the very fine (but real) hair. But Joe looks like a skull with the ultra white teeth, tight skin and hair implants.

Dave Begley said...

Biden said he wants to pick a woman or POC as his VP. Could he pander any more if he tried? Puke.

Michael K said...

Biden has a new ad on healthcare in which he strikes a moderate course, compared with the other Democrats running.

8/28/19, 4:16 PM


Internal polling.

Michael K said...

The fact that Biden polls well shows how scared the rank and file are of Warren. The rest of the Dem field are nobodies.

Yes, hence the healthcare shift.

MadisonMan said...

Biden has a new ad on healthcare in which he strikes a moderate course, compared with the other Democrats running.

Does he still want to give it free to illegal immigrants?

rehajm said...

Maybe for each dollar they contribute to her, $2 goes to the opposition.

These are all-in ers. One worked in the Obama administration. I don’t really see spread it around early people. Sure, often if they pick wrong there’s money going to the nominee later on...

I can only imagine they believe Warren’s schtick is rhetoric and has no chance of becoming law, a la card check. The alternative theory is they are people that believe they’ve made enough money. They’d be right- they have made enough money.

Matt Sablan said...

"Biden said he wants to pick a woman or POC as his VP."

-- Does he have binders of them?

Rabel said...

"Does he have binders of them?"

Not so many. Just a few handfuls.

readering said...

NY Sen. Gillibrand drops out.

RobinGoodfellow said...


Blogger doctrev said...
gahrie said...
I'm just not seeing massive defections from the Trump voter coalition.


I can’t see why anyone who voted Trump in 2016 would fail to vote Trump in 2020. In ‘16 he was an unknown quantity; I voted for him because he wasn’t Hillary, but I assumed he’d be a liberal Republican at best.

But I and everyone else who voted for him have been pleasantly surprised. And I’m sure he will pick up voted among the Democrats (many of whom don’t like the extreme leftward lurch of the presumptive nominees), African-Americans (who are seeing the lowest black unemployment ever measured), Hispanics (who have the most to lose with unchecked illegal immigration), and formerly anti-Trump Republicans (many of whom realize he is pretty conservative).

The Godfather said...

Lots of fun, but seriously: 14 months before a Presidential election, the people that will decide the election aren't paying attention, so what they say to pollsters is meaningless. And the events that will decide the election haven't happened yet.

RobinGoodfellow said...

Don't hold your breath. Most of the polling outfits, which all had Hillary winning, still think their polling was right.

Their polling was right—we just let them down, again.

rehajm said...

The alternative theory is...

The alternative, alternative theory is party insiders pick the nominees and the whole primary thing is just a farce to get commoners fired up for the general election.

GRW3 said...

Nobody is watching these debates. Nobody, other the the true believers and Fox News viewers, knows all the crazy things these people are promising. Unlike Bush, McCain, or Romney, Trump won’t campaign on what they say at the convention or in the final campaign, he’ll hit them with everything they have promised during the Democratic primaries. He’s also going to tase the specter of the disastrous Democratic track record and ask if they want that.

Paul said...

We love those farce polls. They are just total jokes.

MacMacConnell said...

"NY Sen. Gillibrand drops out."

Who are all the wealthy entitled and connected private school voters going to support now?

Bay Area Guy said...

From Politico - Native American critics still wary of Warren despite apology tour .

Senator Warren's gonna have to bury the hatchet on this apology tour.

MacMacConnell said...

We have to re-elect Trump just to see the RBG Apocalypse come to fruition. The left and the media will shit their pants. I'm thinking 1970 when the Left started bombing shit. Good times!

Browndog said...

2018 was the trial run of ballot harvesting. It was used in CA to take down all the GOP Congress members in OC and in AZ to take down McSally in the Senate race. Granted McSally ran a weak race but she was ahead after election day, just like all the GOP Congress people. in OC The "late votes" rolled in for two weeks.

In 2016, all but two congressional districts were red. In 2018, all were blue. ALL.

How this isn't getting more attention, and why people aren't scared shitless over the 2020 election is beyond me.

You don't win elections based on policy and performance. You win based on vote counting.

Republicans are the last to know....

rehajm said...

Fox just had a poll stating Republicans more than Democrats are concerned about vote count shenanigans.

MacMacConnell said...

Trump tweets.
"A sad day for the Democrats, Kirsten Gillibrand has dropped out of the Presidential Primary. I’m glad they never found out that she was the one I was really afraid of!"

He's a master troll!

Fen said...

PARTY IDENTIFICATION
Republican 29%
Democrat 34
Independent 28
Other/DK/NA 9


And I bet they over-sampled NeverTrumpers too. Deliberately.

BUMBLE BEE said...

I he picks Kamala we'll know why!

Fen said...

Lynch: The polls will say what they want them to say until close to the election, then they will tighten up, or approach reality as then understood, otherwise the game is up and everyone would know that the polls are just instruments of manipulation.

I think you are spot on.

I also think Republicans suffer from previous Prevent Defense Campaigns, where the GOP nominee is expected play careful, err on the side of caution to avoid mistakes, let the Dems move the ball for short to medium yardage but deny them the endzone.

Trump is not going to play that way. He is going to be a force, and aggressive one that will go for the ball, fight to deny the Dems every inch, risk fouling out, throw the Hail Mary to run up the score.

Republicans are not used to this.

Fen said...

I can’t see why anyone who voted Trump in 2016 would fail to vote Trump in 2020.

There's Farmer.

Apparently, 21 new miles of border wall per month just isn't fast enough to keep his vote.

Lazarus said...

Reagan and Clinton both had approval ratings that low at one point and they still managed to be reelected. But those were one-time low points, not average ratings.

"Approval" can be quite tepid. I've "approved" of presidents I didn't like much and voted for politicians that I didn't like at all. If a majority isn't willing to give an incumbent even a lukewarm degree of approval over a whole term, it could spell trouble for the candidate.

On the other hand, it's common for the candidates of the party in power to lag behind in voter preference polls and still come up winners. People like to complain about incumbents until they actually have to make a choice.

LA_Bob said...

Althouse said, "I myself tend to disapprove of all the politicians, but I do pick one to vote for in the end."

I used to accept the "lesser of two evils" theory but came to reject it. We always pick a candidate relative to the alternative(s). There is simply no way all the voters in a typical jurisdiction will approve of everything about a candidate. Nationally, it is unimaginable with nearly 250 million eligible voters.

There are things I dislike about Trump. I think Temujin once said he usually wishes Trump would lose his cellphone. I agree with that. But I will vote for Trump over anyone currently running or likely to run against him.

bagoh20 said...

It's a hell of a lot easier to vote for Trump in private than to tell someone you approve of him in public. Want proof? How many Trump voters would wear a MAGA hat around town, or put a sticker on your car?

I have a MAGA hat, and I want to wear it, becuase I do support him, but I always imagine how many freaking nuts are out there, and TDS is a powerful drug, and I don't want to have to shoot one of those losers when they attack me.

What do you think the percentage is of Trump voters who would tell people in public: "Yes, I approve of Trump."? Right there is your winning margin.

bagoh20 said...

"Althouse said, "I myself tend to disapprove of all the politicians, but I do pick one to vote for in the end."

There is one non-politician running, so this should be easy.

narciso said...

Like with the tea partu

http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=383033

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